


Better to Have

by overlymetaromantic



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gen, memory problems, mildly implied endgame Max/Victoria - Freeform, spoilers for episode 5, spoilers for the game as a whole, vague themes of PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5362442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overlymetaromantic/pseuds/overlymetaromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe whatever self Max was in those moments in between had time to compress and cope with the new reality in which her childhood best friend was dead. But the her she is now, the one who didn’t get to experience any of that first hand and only has fragments to piece together what she might have done in the meantime--well, to say she’s been having some trouble processing it all is an understatement.</p><p>(In which Victoria comes across Max on the school roof.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better to Have

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still mildly fucked up by episode 5 of Life is Strange, so have self-indulgent character interactions disguised as a study in empathy; or, an epilogue, of sorts.
> 
> To anyone who reads this, I hope you enjoy! And I apologize now for the lack of slang, I am sadly not fluent in "teen".

Of all the scars her brief bout with time travel have left her, Max thinks the cruelest was how whatever powers that be decided to skip her straight from letting Chloe die in that godawful bathroom to mere moments before she was expected to attend Chloe’s funeral.

Maybe whatever self she was in those moments in between had time to compress and cope with the new reality in which her childhood best friend was dead. But the her she is now, the one who didn’t get to experience any of that first hand and only has fragments to piece together what she might have done in the meantime--well, to say she’s been having some trouble processing it all is an understatement.

Max shifts against the cold concrete of the roof, holed up against the door. She’s been coming up here a lot recently, after having discovered the lock was busted when she had been looking for a quiet place to think. It must have been how Kate had managed to place herself up there that one Tuesday, so many lifetimes ago.

Max presses the palms of her hands against her eyes until she sees stars, trying to fend off the headache she can feel building in her skull. Kate never jumped with Jefferson’s arrest, she has to remember that; but then, there’re a lot of things she once experienced that no longer apply, and attempting to sort through it all does nothing for the pounding in her head.

What hurts the most is that no one would know the life Chloe could have led if only she hadn’t confronted Nathan in that bathroom. She can’t even share it with anyone--she apparently made it back to the Two Whales some point, but now with all her bearings back, setting foot anywhere near the diner feels more akin to picking at a raw wound. Joyce didn’t deserve this; Max can still hear her broken sobs as she had watched her daughter be lowered into the ground. She would be left forever wondering what she could have done different so that her baby might still be alive, David would never know that Chloe could have come to care, and no one knew what could have been, except for her. Max may not of been the one who shot Chloe, but there are times when it sure as hell feels like she’s the reason Chloe’s dead.

Max blinks rapidly, trying to process that the peaceful landscape spread out in front of her is the real one, and there are no supernatural storms out on the horizon, no matter how her brain insists otherwise. By the time she does manage it, though, the sunlight is starting to dim and there’s a chill to the air that wasn’t there before, and Max forces herself to get up off the ground to make the trek back to her room before it gets completely dark.

The campus is surprisingly quiet for a Friday evening--at least, Max thinks she remembers it being a Friday. The days tend to blur together despite the fact that she’s experiencing time linearly again; somehow, it’s harder to distinguish between them without literal life-altering events happening to her every few hours, instead replaced by the mundane routine that marks most people’s lives. In this world, Mark Jefferson was arrested, he’s gone and won’t be back, and Nathan too, that _is_ the reality here, not just a false memory stuck in her head. Now that she thinks about it, that would probably be reason enough for most students to elect to stay indoors despite the lovely weather; she vaguely wonders if the Vortex Club’s party still went on despite all the scandal--it marched on past Kate’s suicide, after all, but if it did in this timeline, Max hadn’t been lucid enough to remember it.

Max steps a little closer to the roof’s ledge, taking a deep breath as a rush of wind whips through her hair. She doesn’t see the deer anywhere, but there’s a certain relief in that, even as a sinking feeling of disappointment grips at her insides. It’s not like she even knows what would happen if she were to find Rachel again, if that was, in fact, Rachel; she doesn’t really have much to go on beyond the whole ghost doe popping up where she and Chloe had ultimately discovered Rachel’s body. The fact that the image of her decomposing body is one of the few things that remains consistent no matter what else she did makes her feel sick in a way she doesn’t want to linger on. If she had been able to travel back far enough to see Rachel, and stay long enough to make a _fucking_ difference before being jerked back into a new reality she had no context for--

Max doesn’t want her powers back, she _doesn_ ’t, but having that brief sense of control only to for it to be ripped away and shoved in her face that actually she never really mattered hurts in a way she doesn’t fully have the words to describe. She feels so much older than she did mere weeks ago, like she’s aged lifetimes--and in a fucked up way, she has, though she doesn’t feel any better for it, just more exhausted.

“Why?” The sound of her own voice startles her, raspy like she hasn’t talked for days, and come to think of it, she doesn’t think she has. Still, now that the word’s out there, it really is the only thing she can think to sum up everything that has been swirling through her brain ever since she found herself at Chloe’s funeral. Max takes a shaky breath and glowers up at the sky, her teeth grit hard enough to hurt. “ _Why_?” she tries again, her voice cracking on the word. “Why would you make me love her just to take her away from me? Why would you _do_ that to me, fuck you!”

The campus offers her nothing but silence, but Max can practically hear the universe reply, _She was never yours to have._

Part of her wonders if that other Max from her nightmare had been one who decided to say fuck you to Arcadia Bay and let the whole place burn in Chloe’s name; she wishes she had the chance to ask. But then, it hadn’t been a question she had allowed to remain on her mind at the time:  part of her surely suspected that all the shit that went down was due at least in part to Chloe remaining alive--the sheer number of times Chloe had near-death experiences that were only prevented by Max’s powers was kind of difficult to miss--but a much larger part of her refused to entertain the thought. She had Chloe back, and Chloe had her, and what could be more important than that, except, possibly, the end of the world?

Blackwell continues to choose silence in lieu of giving Max any kind of answers: whether or not she did the right thing, hell, whether or not there was a right thing to do at _all_.

She never did get the chance to meet Rachel; at least, not in some weird ghost doe form who may or may not have been the source of her powers. For what reason, though, she hasn’t a clue. To make her love Chloe? Make her understand what she missed out on in the years she spent trying to figure out what to say to Chloe, only to lose her friendship to distance and time? It’s hypocritical--though she can see why Chloe said Max reminded her of Rachel sometimes.

It had always felt a little like falling, the world rushing past underneath her feet before she was dropped solidly back into reality whenever she rewound time, so it’s somehow both a surprise and perfectly reasonable that she’s hit with the urge to climb up on the rooftop ledge. She has no interest in actually falling, but if it might recapture that feeling--back when she had power, back when what she did mattered--Max interrupts her own train of thought with a snort. Really, how fucking selfish can she be? Still, the single desire is enough to quiet her brain for the first time in days:  maybe it wouldn’t hurt to indulge, at least a little. She steps forward until she bumps the front her shoes against the ledge and lets her eyes drift closed.

“ _Oh my God?!_ ”

Max jerks out of her reverie with a gasp and she gets a brief glimpse of short blonde hair before she stumbles thankfully backwards, landing hard on her backside. A flash of embarrassment spikes through her, but she forces herself to crawl back and peeks over the edge.

Victoria is gone. Maybe she imagined it?

That wouldn’t exactly be comforting, considering how many problems her head’s been having lately. She huffs and shakes it violently--it doesn’t help her headache, but she’s able to collect herself enough to creep back down the stairs. She quietly opens the door to the hall, only to see Victoria pacing just outside the doorway.

“Uh--”

Max didn’t actually mean to say anything, but there’s nothing she can do to take the announcement of her presence back as Victoria spins on her heel, her expression going from shock to anger to what seems to be aggressive disinterest.

“What do you want?” she snaps, her arms crossed tight over her chest. Max waits to see if she has anything else to offer, but it seems Victoria has no intention of broaching the subject first. Max takes a deep breath.

“I, uh, wasn’t going to jump,” she says meekly. It’s apparently the wrong thing to say, because Victoria immediately stiffens and starts sputtering. Max can see her cheeks are flushed and her shoulders are heaving like she’s out of breath; considering she  was outside the door before Max had even made it down the stairs, she must have sprinted over.

Victoria apparently noticed Max had been staring, because she throws her hands up. “No, fuck this, I am _not_ doing this out in the hallway. You--”

She cuts herself off, her face twisting as she struggles to settle on just what Max is. Maybe it’s out of some sort of hidden masochistic streak, but without thinking Max holds the door to the stairs open a little wider before Victoria can continue her rant:  an obvious invitation. Victoria immediately stills, and Max shrugs.

“If you want to talk,” she says. For possibly the first time since Max started Blackwell, Victoria seems to be at a loss for words. Max feels a sharp pang for her lost ability to rewind conversations, but before she can attempt the more mundane version of backtracking, Victoria strides past her through the open door and sits down on the steps with a huff. After a beat, Max follows her, letting the door click shut behind her, and she leans against it.

No one has blamed her for any of what’s happened; the rational part of Max knows there’s no reason anyone would, but with the way they keep trying to look past their own grief in order to allow for Max’s, full of understanding or pity, it just ends up hurting more. Kate or Warren may be more willing to lend a sympathetic ear than Victoria, but that’s not what she needs right now, and if anything, she can trust Victoria not to hold back her punches.

“Well, talk,” Victoria says brusquely. Max looks up from her feet to Victoria’s glower.

“Why were you at Chloe’s funeral?” she blurts, and then freezes--it’s a question that’s refused to leave her mind since she somehow managed to stumble back to her dorm post-service, but it wasn’t exactly what she had planned to open this with. Once again, Max sorely wishes she could still erase her words from existence with a simple raise of her hand, and she tries not to wince when Victoria levels her with a look.

“Nathan’s never going to get the chance to apologize,” she replies, not quite defensively, but there’s an underlying tone that’s hard to miss. “Someone had to do it for him.”

Max blinks. “You did it for _Nathan_?”

If Victoria hadn’t been defensive before, she certainly is now. “He’s my friend, fuck you. Or did that not occur to you?”

That’s quite frankly a strong possibility, and Max hates herself a little more for it. There are so many gaps in her memory that it hurts trying to piece them all together. Did she make it out of the bathroom without being found? Did people know she was a witness? What would they say if they knew she had stayed hidden while a girl was murdered not ten feet away and who knew, maybe it could have been prevented if she had just made her presence known--

“You aren’t the only one who lost someone, you know.” Victoria’s harsh voice snaps Max back to reality, and she shakes her head sharply in an attempt to clear it. There must have been something lingering in her expression, though, because when she catches a glimpse of Victoria’s face she’s surprised to see she’s plainly trying to backtrack. “Okay, so Nathan isn’t _dead_ , but still, it’s not like he’s any likelier to get help in the system than he was at this fucking school.”

Max feels a stab of pity for Nathan, stronger than she would have thought possible considering everything he’d done, both in the old reality and the new. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to get the fear tinging Nathan’s voice as he used his last moments to call her fully out of her mind--a call she apparently didn’t even answer. Victoria speaks up again. “He wasn’t, nicer, per se, when he was on his medication, but he wasn’t a murderer, okay? Look,” Victoria snaps her attention back to Max, “I am not here to be your shrink, but Blackwell’s a small school, it’s hard to miss when one of us is acting out of sorts, and--” She waves her hand irritably. “People noticed Nathan, but they didn’t do anything--I didn’t do anything--so I owe him that much.”

“Do you think I’m acting out of sorts?”

Victoria makes a noise that she probably intended to sound a lot more noncommittal than it came out to be, and Max snorts--the first time in a very long time, she realizes, and the brief spike of euphoria fades as quickly as it came.

“Sorry. It’s just--I loved her,” Max admits. Victoria visibly stiffens above her, and she realizes she should probably clarify that statement. “Chloe, I mean. We--we grew up together, we were best friends until we were thirteen and her dad died and my family moved away. I never got in touch with her after that, not even when I came back here--if I had just reached out when I first came back here, if I had texted her a month ago, a week, a day, fuck, an _hour_ \--”

“You sound awful confident of that,” Victoria interrupts, and Max realizes quite suddenly her nails are digging into her palms. She forces herself to uncurl her fingers and focus on the here and now of Victoria crossing her arms and legs as she leans back on the step, once again not quite defensive, but something close. “You can be as egocentric as you want, but you can’t actually control other people’s bad decisions, you know. It sucks, but you’re not responsible for her--I mean, for fuck’s sake, we’re a bunch of teenagers at a private liberal arts school, we’re _all_ pretentious little shits to some extent, of course we’re going to do stupid-ass things we regret.”

The tone Victoria has been building breaks at the end--she sounds almost desperate, like she needs this to be true as much as Max does. The thought hits her even harder than her sympathy for Nathan did, and Max slides her back down the door in a sudden release of tension that she hadn’t realized had been keeping her standing up until that point. Somehow, hearing this come from Victoria seems more real, maybe because it’s plainly meant as much for herself as an insult towards Max. She finds herself fighting a smile again, and buries her chin against her knees. Even with her increasingly indulged nosiness that came with her temporary powers, it’s strange to think how easy it may have been to miss experiencing this.

Max catches a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. She looks over just in time to see a butterfly land on her sneaker, and any good feelings she may have had immediately vanish in place of panic. For a brief moment it feels like time has frozen, or maybe rewound without her noticing; Max instinctively presses the back of her hand up against her nose, and it feels all the stranger when it comes away free of blood.

“Oh, that’s a nice shot.” Victoria’s gaze has landed on Max’s shoe, uncurling herself to get a closer look.

“No, wait--” Max blurts--the butterfly shifts and she freezes, barely even breathing as it settles back down. Even Victoria has stilled, and Max takes advantage of the silence to reorient herself. Upon closer inspection, the butterfly seems less ethereal and more, just, blue; Max knows the markings of the one that started it all like the back of her hand, but this is just a regular butterfly, trapped in the stairwell between the hallway and the roof. She takes a slow breath, steeling herself, before she cups it carefully in her hands and moves to stand back up.

“What--where are you going?”

“It’s, uh, bad lighting in here,” Max says, and hopes her attempt at a smile encourages her trustworthiness rather than lessens it. “Help me with the door?”

Victoria grumbles something under her breath, but she gets up with remarkably little hesitation, spinning around with a dramatic huff to go ahead of Max and open the door back out to the roof.

The butterfly takes advantage of Max’s open hands to flutter its wings once before taking off into the sky as Max blinks against the light. For a split second, it’s the perfect picture, the blue contrasting perfectly with the pink and orange hues, and then the butterfly disappears into the distance. Still, the colors in the clouds alone are more than snapshot-worthy, and Max reaches for her camera. She stops, though, when she remembers it actually is her camera she’s pulling out of her bag, not William’s--hers never broke in this timeline, and she’s thankful when Victoria makes a similarly aborted movement, giving her something else to focus on.

Victoria is eyeing Max’s partially emerged camera, her own hand halfway in her skirt’s pocket. Max does her best to casually shrug.

“I won’t judge if you don’t.”

Victoria flicks her gaze back over to Max before she scoffs and pulls out a slim digital camera, turning it towards the setting sun. After a beat, Max follows suit, but the colors have already shifted; it’s still remarkable, but not what had initially caught her eye, and her concentration’s too shot to reframe. She instead watches Victoria flick through her settings, the light bouncing off her profile as she purses her lips together, and without really thinking Max turns her camera and snaps a shot of Victoria instead. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to subtly take a subtle picture with a polaroid, and Victoria cocks an eyebrow at her.

“Way to ask permission,” she says, and Max’s blood runs cold. It’s doesn’t even sound like she’s trying to be accusatory, but suddenly all Max can see is Victoria in the dark room, bound up and crying, waiting to die. She stumbles backwards, desperately trying to reorient herself, and dimly registers the flash of concern that crosses Victoria’s face. Max would laugh again if she could remember how. There’s something ironic in the fact that she did a better job of keeping Victoria safe when they didn’t get along than when she actually came to care.

It’s a sobering thought, but strangely grounding too as Max slowly comes back to herself. She certainly did come to care a whole lot more about Arcadia Bay than she thought possible. In fact, she may have seen the worst of everyone that week, but that’s just it, that was the worst of them. She arguably saw the worst in herself, for that matter--rigging conversations for her own gain isn’t exactly the pinnacle of moral sanctity, after all. Maybe now she’ll get the chance to see the best in them instead.

“Max?”

“Sorry--” Max starts to reach for her nose again, but she forces herself to stop. She holds up the photograph instead. “Permission to keep the photo?”

“Let me see it.” Victoria snatches it away from her and stares for a minute. Something in her disdained expression twitches, though Max isn’t sure if it was a good twitch or not since Victoria spins around and returns to setting up her shot like nothing happened before she can get a closer look. “Permission granted.”

“Are you, planning on keeping it, then, or--”

“Well it is an unsolicited picture of _me_ , I should think I have the right to.” If Max didn’t know any better, she would say Victoria looks embarrassed, but she doesn’t push the point. She’s had her photos stolen before, after all, and she smiles a little at the memory--even if it technically didn’t happen, those moments with Chloe are still hers to have.

“It’s, ah, fine if you like girls, by the way,” Victoria suddenly adds. Max can only stare incredulously as Victoria is now undeniably blushing. “I know I can be a bitch about a lot of things, but--it’s an art school, you kind of expect that sort of thing.”

“Boys are fine too,” Max eventually says. Victoria just mumbles something unintelligible to herself and snaps a quick shot of what’s left of the sunset, the tips of her ears still pink.

“Right, well, I’m going back inside before I freeze my ass off out here.” Victoria turns her camera off with a flourish and marches off without so much as a glance back. She makes it about halfway before she spins back around and points an accusatory finger at Max, picture still in hand. “This _doesn_ ’t make us friends, by the way.”

Some things really don’t change no matter what, it seems. “Don’t worry, I never would accuse you as much,” Max grins. Victoria clearly doesn’t appreciate her attitude, but Max just adds, “Though if you ever want to talk again, the door up here is never locked.”

“Good to know,” Victoria says, sarcasm practically dripping off the words. Still, she’s noticeably clutching Max’s picture of her against the wind, and her embarrassed glare only increases when Max raises an eyebrow. Somehow, like this, it’s easier to guess how in at least one universe they may have become friends. With another small smile to herself and one last glance at the disappearing sun, Max settles herself a little better in this reality and follows her down the stairs.


End file.
